10/14 Your letters: Mark G. Rodin, Donald Holloway, and Nicholas Pyle

Primary wastes tax dollars

With the exception of 2008, I have served as an election assistant and – starting this year – my fifth year as a judge at the Triangle Presbyterian Church precinct.

After the 2013 and 2015 primaries, I submitted letters asking our city council to seriously consider eliminating the municipal primary. I am asking our council again to end the primary election.

Only 13 percent of eligible voters cast ballots either during early voting or on primary day. At Triangle Presbyterian primary-day participation did increase to 215 from the 95 to 100 who voted in 2013 and 2015.

Sign Up and Save

However, as I have previously stated, the primary is a waste of city tax dollars better spent on things such as parks, recreation or street and sidewalk repairs. If 13 percent of eligible voters – and I believe voter participation increased because we will have a new mayor for the first time in 20 years as well as a new councilman in Ward 2 (also now Ward 3 with Don Moffit’s third place finish) – why have a primary? What is the advantage?

Tuesday’s results show the first-place finishers easily won if only a citywide general election were held. Although the Durham County Board of Elections was in charge and hired all poll workers, city tax dollars pay us. Please, councilmen and councilwomen, let’s use those dollars for better purposes.

Mark G. Rodin

Durham

Not their fault

A recent story in the local papers centered on a retired North Carolina employee, Carla Shuford, who is having financial problems caused by careless or non-existent auditing of her state retirement pay, Disability benefits, and social security by the appropriate state agencies. Essentially, they overpaid her $19,000 over 10 years. But also overpaid over a million dollars to some 60 other retired state employees. And so they have reduced her payments enough to get their money back in five years, not 10 years.

This is causing unnecessary hardship among these former employees, including Carla Shuford. It would be much more considerate to either forgive all these people of paying the state for mistakes by the auditors. And at least these retirees should not have to pay the share of those overpayments that went for state and federal taxes. Let the auditors demand their money back from these taxing agencies..

But show decency and clemency for these former state employees, It was NOT their dereliction of responsibility for this situation.

Donald A. Holloway

Chapel Hill

A sweet deal

Congressman George Butterfield (D-NC- 1) is in the pocket of the nation’s beet and cane sugar cartels! Butterfield continually votes to maintain the U.S. Sugar program. Why? It is really quite simple, Congressman Butterfield received well over $66,000 in political donations from the sugar cartels since coming to Washington in 2004.

Thanks to Rep. Butterfield and others, the U.S. Sugar Program continues. The Sugar Program is a Soviet-style command and control scheme that restricts planting and imports. This inflates the price of sugar in the United States to almost double the world price. So, when you go to the store to buy a snack cake or anything sweetened, you pay more! According to the Congressional Budget Office, the program means Americans pay $3.5 billion every year in increased grocery costs, which breaks down to $58 per household.

In Rep. Butterfield’s 13 years in office, he repeatedly voted against sugar reform costing each North Carolina family an additional $754 for groceries. You have to ask yourself, is my congressman really fighting to make life better, or is he just another politician in it for the campaign contributions? It’s time for congressman Butterfield to step up and end this costly government giveaway to the cartels!

The Independent Bakers Association is an international trade association that fights to protect the interests of mostly family owned wholesale bakers and allied trades. For more information about IBA and sugar program corruption, visit IBAbaker.com.

Nicholas A. Pyle

President

Independent Bakers Association

Letters policy

Please send up to 300 words to letters@heraldsun.com. All submissions, online comments and Facebook posts may be edited for space and clarity. Thank you.